Because of their ability to move large amounts of material, conveyor belts have been long been used in industry such as for moving agricultural products, rocks and other mined materials and various manufactured products.
One area in which conveyor belts are extensively used is equipment for moving agricultural products and, in particular, agricultural equipment that is used for harvesting. Wide-aspect belts are extensively used in farm machinery, especially harvesting implements, examples of which are discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,371,580 and 4,518,647.
In many rubber formulations that are used in conjunction with fabricating conveyor belts, it is customary for aromatic petroleum based oil to be used as a processing aid. For a variety of environmental and/or health reasons, it is desirable to reduce and/or eliminate the use of such aromatic petroleum based oil.
Sandstrom et al., U.S. Patent No. 2014/0135424, is directed to rubber compositions fabricated using natural rubber that is processed using soybean oil as a processing aid instead of petroleum-based processing oil.
Sandstrom et al., U.S. Patent No. 2014/0135437, is directed to rubber compositions fabricated using conjugated diene-based elastomer using soybean oil as a processing aid instead of petroleum-based processing oil.